This invention relates to firering shields of universal adaptability, suitable for providing firering shields on new and existing firerings.
Outdoor cooking has enjoyed great popularity for many years. County, state and national park services often provide outdoor cooking grills and firerings for use by those participating in recreation in the parks. Such grills and firerings are a tremendous convenience to the recreation enthusiasts, and also a considerable convenience and safety measure to the park administrators in that they assure that fires, and the accompanying mess, are confined to certain areas.
Firerings, and firerings with cantilevered adjustable grills, are known. See, for example, my earlier commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,403,596, and commonly assigned design U.S. Pat. No. 276,302. Basically, such units feature a cooking grate with some sort of level of adjustment range above the ground or fire level, attached to the firering itself. The firering encircles or envelops the area in which the campfire or cooking fire is contained. Oftentimes such firerings are filled, for example, to about 10 inches above ground level with coarse granular fill material to provide an elevated fire building surface. Drain holes and draft holes are commonly built in and around the perimeter of the firering.
It often happens that in use such firerings are effective, but that the ring itself, after constant exposure to fire and the high temperatures caused by the fire, will itself become quite hot. Thus, a hot firering if touched, for example, by a child, could cause a burn.
It is, therefore, desirable to have firerings which have a heat shield that prevents such burn risk. In this way, one can achieve the advantages of a firering without also the normal attendant risk of burn that may be caused by inadvertent touching.
This invention has as its primary objective providing a firering with a heat shield which minimizes burn risk.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a firering which has universal adaptability such that it can be attached to firerings of original manufacture or installed as an accessory on existing park firerings.
A still further objective of the invention is to provide a universal bracket adaptable for attaching heat shields to firerings of a variety of manufacturers.
A yet further objective of the present invention is to provide a firering and a bracketing system of a universal nature for the widest possible usage with firerings from a variety of manufacturing sources.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a universal firering bracket of single-piece design which can effectively be stamped from metal sheeting, one stroke which blanks the part, and one stroke which forms the bending of the part.
The method and means of accomplishing each of the above objectives, as well as others, will become apparent from the detailed description of the invention which follows hereinafter.
This invention relates to an improved firering having an endless wall firering to encircle the perimeter of a fire area in association with a firering shield enveloping the firering, with the shield being attached to the firering in spaced apart, heat shielding relationship. The heat shield is attached by a universal bracket of single-piece construction which can be stamped with one manufacturing stroke and then bent in another manufacturing stroke to form the universal bracket.